36 Reasons I Left Arselington-on-the-Wane

With the recent flurry of articles about why people are leaving London, we thought asking The Dulwich Raider why he left the provinces and moved to the capital might provide some illuminating counter-arguments.

Sorry.

36 Reasons I Left Arselington-on-the-Wane

Nothing ever changes.

Nothing ever actually happens.

It’s filled with people who have either never been to London or lived there for a while and ‘didn’t like it’.

Houses are painted pink or yellow.

If you want to do something as outlandish as eating out you are obliged to drive.

Restaurants close at 8.30pm.

When you ask for some bread you get a slice of Mother’s Pride, cut in half.

‘Can I interest Sir in something from the bread basket?’

When you ask for a side-salad you get a tomato and grated carrot with no dressing.

Pizza is considered ‘ethnic’.

When you want to eat out again the following week, you have to go back to the same restaurant because it’s the only fucking one for 10 miles.

There used to be 14 pubs in the village and now there are two. And one of those has Stairway to Heaven on the jukebox.

The pubs shut between 2pm and 5pm like they did in the war.

People in the pubs talk about fishing, cock-fighting and fisting barnyard animals.

Everywhere floods.

When they’re not flooded, the fields are covered in animal faeces, pesticides or grown men flying model aircraft.

Everybody litters: They throw things out of their cars, they fly tip in fields and dog-walkers throw plastic bags filled with shit up into the trees.

Shit up a tree

Cows stare you out like you said something about their mother.

There are no jobs except potato-picking where you get felt up behind the trailer by the boss-eyed farmer.

Farmers shoot your dog.

The roads have no pavements.

Everybody drives like a cunt.

One game local boy-racers play is driving as fast as you can down country lanes at night with your headlights switched off to ‘see what happens’.

If you’re lucky, there is one bus a day and two on Saturday. There are no buses on a Sunday, like we’re all fucking Christians.

Everyone’s a fucking Christian.

If you want to hear live music you have to go to the local hall on a Saturday and watch a covers band called ‘Executive Decision’.

If you sport anything other than a short back and sides you are considered a homosexual.

If you have time for any political party other than the Tories or Ukip you are considered a communist homosexual.

Everyone knows everything that you do and thinks you’re a communist homosexual.

The news is shit. In fact it is sometimes about shit. Up a tree.

Shit news

If you accidentally leave on your light with a window open at night, the room will be filled with monstrous flying lifeforms with outsized mandibles and skin so translucent you can see blood pumping round their grotesque frames. Your blood.

Because there aren’t enough people to go round, many feel obliged to have penetrative sex with their brothers. Or animals. Or an animal which is also their brother.

The main form of contraception is cider.

People moan about immigration despite the fact that a) there is no immigration where they live and b) every immigrant I’ve ever met is preferable to the bile-spewing cro-magnon Nazis that roam free in the countryside.

It’s dark. There is not enough electricity for lighting so at night everything is pitch black and you fall into ditches where you are eaten by bats.

It’s freezing. While London basks in constant year-round temperatures of 21 degrees people in Norfolk or Bristolshire are forced to huddle under flea-infested blankets in igloos.

It’s racist. All foreigners are frowned upon, especially those from the next village.

It’s violent. If anyone from the next village dares to stop by for a pint they will have their tyres slashed and their skull caved in with a pool ball in a sock.